Working Depletion With My Depletion ProtocolI was horribly tired before I got through the entirety of my routine. And I could tell because I kept cycling through procrastination mechanisms: cycling through email, facebook, and reddit.

Write down observations of what I'm feeling and what's happening. I was feeling tired and my task switching time was increasing a lot with every switch. I felt a fuzziness in concentration. And I was cycling through unproductive internet site in order to procrastinate.

Write down reasons why I could be depleted. I did not sleep much at all last night. I was quite down and had a very protracted emotional discussion yesterday where I had to confront a lot of my own weaknesses. I also exerted more by increasing my rowing by 5 minutes in the morning. I also knew I had to do more today what with my meal prep.

Watch a Youtube clip of a comedy or stand up comic. Watched 3 Key and Peele Youtube videos.

Drop all habits to a smaller daily minimum. My remaining habits were already at minimums.

Reverse my routine. I only had two more things to do.

Get out into the sun. Did not do this.

Read a list of my accomplishments. Did this.

Read a list of affirmations. Did this.

Meditate. Did not do this.

I went through this utterly exhausted and depleted and just went through this mechanically, doing the things that were the easiest. I did not write down anything, just did #2 in my mind. I did not do anything active like get out into the sun or meditate. And it worked.

The thing that helped was being prepared. I already had a list of affirmations and accomplishments written down, so all I had to do was read it.

I think in the future more preparation is important. Having a guided meditation audio track or simply a text would be helpful as a crutch in such an instance. As would having a snack on hand specifically for moments like this.

Perhaps the most important thing that's needed is some sort of method for calling it. That is, it would be nice to have some way to trigger myself into realizing that I'm just wasting time.

But all in all I think it was a successful test of the protocol. I think the next thing I have to get into is how to mitigate willpower loss in task switching, something that will only get worse as I add more habits and skills into the day. But that's for another day...